Digital Business - Joined Up, Not Pulled Apart

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We’ve all heard, read and talked
about what Gartner refers to as the 'digitalization' of business, where
enterprises seek to adapt not just their IT, but business models and processes
to suit a world increasingly doing business online. It's been a hot topic for
some time and is gaining even greater traction as CEOs and CIOs alike wake up
to the benefits of this kind of digital transformation.

Achieving this transformation,
however, is far from simple or straightforward, and a degree of caution is
called for if businesses are to avoid being pulled in different directions by
competing demands from within. In particular, given that lines of business
units are empowered to source, develop and manage IT solutions themselves,
rather than continue with the age old approach of relying on a central IT
department to do it all for them.

Commonly referred to as the
democratization of IT, this delegation of responsibility is growing in
popularity as a means of building more agile applications tailored specifically
to the needs of those working at the edge of the business. The dilemma,
however, is that those applications still need to access and work with core
infrastructure systems, subject to a completely different development mindset
and compliance agenda and, in most cases, completely off limits to those
outside the core IT team.

Add to that the fact that,
unfettered by the rules and prejudices of the past, line of business developers
are highly likely to turn to third parties and public cloud services as an
expedient way of achieving their goals, and you have the recipe for an almost
perfect storm. A storm made up of applications which may well deliver in the
short term, but which exist in their own self-contained silos, effectively cut
off from both core business systems and other edge developments. More alarming
still, those siloed applications that are subject to completely different
compliance and management regimes.

Tackling this perfect storm
before it pulls the business apart calls first and foremost for a coherent and
comprehensive strategy that addresses the different IT demands of both the core
and the edge of the business. And that calls for a real sea change in the way
IT strategy has been developed up until now.

It also calls for a good deal
more transparency and access to core systems. Typically, through managed APIs
that enable developers at the edge to build applications that can work and
share information with core systems (and other edge applications) without loss
of control or exposing those systems to unacceptable security risks.

Beyond that, digital
transformation requires the building of an infrastructure able to orchestrate
and automate processes across the organisation, regardless of whether the
component applications are running in the corporate datacenter, on branch
servers, a private cloud or public cloud services. In short, IT in all its
guises needs to be joined up, shared and made subject to the same compliance
and management agenda.

The good news is that products
and technologies to progress digital transformation are appearing thick and
fast. The bad news is that most address only specific parts of the problem. Even
where vendors claim to offer more comprehensive solutions, few can match the
scope of those from companies like TIBCO, who seem to have seen the storm coming from a long way
off and developed more comprehensive software accordingly.

Some companies have been working in the area since day one, allowing them to develop a unique, comprehensive and highly integrated set
of technologies, products and services designed expressly to empower businesses
to address the competing IT demands of both the core and the edge of the
business. They enable their clients to formulate and implement an IT strategy that
not only acknowledges, but reconciles those demands and which can be
implemented across multiple platforms, to deliver the agility needed at the
edge together with the stability and control required by the core and build a
fully 'joined-up' digital business. Whether you choose to employ one of these companies or manage your digital transformation in-house, failing to properly optimize the transition could have fatal consequences.